Sky View

Even if this were not my fourth consecutive day on the bike, I doubt that I could have powered my way up the steep pitches of Skyview Terrace. Most of the riders in our small group had not visited this hill before. Before we made the first turn, we stopped to confer with the ride leader: “Are you sure this is the right way around the loop?”

Then we plummeted toward the nadir. The road dropped 440 feet in 6/10th of a mile.

Good thing we were taking the “easier” way. [Egads!]

Momentum carried me up the first pitch. Not bad, I thought ... until the next pitch loomed above me. Time to use my feet in a different way. (I walked.) Two-tenths of a mile at an average gradient of 14.5%. The pace of the riders ahead of me was barely faster. The terrain relented to about 6% before kicking back up; I dismounted again after a taste of 14.2% and walked another 2/10 of a mile. Steep is not my forté. There was margin in my heart rate, but the muscles in my legs were done, done, done.

This was a social ride, and one of our riders regaled us with stories of her role in a legendary Death Ride stunt. The Rolling Bones, a large group of Hewlett Packard employees, included a guy who would pilot a tandem with a full-sized skeleton for a stoker. When the engineers rigged Ms. Bones with a walkie-talkie, she provided the voice. Trailing at a respectful distance, she would wait for some serious rider to pull alongside the tandem. “Mmm, nice legs!” she'd coo. Ms. Bones retired in 2004, after joining the ranks of the five-pass finishers.

And yes, I am slower than a team of guys hauling a skeleton on a heavy tandem—I pedaled for 12 hours, 55 minutes to finish the ride in 2009.

For the week, about 202 miles with 8,650 feet of climbing. Riding my way back into shape.

See the Other Side

A common question from non-cyclists at the office is “What route do you take?” One colleague could only imagine taking the freeway [which, as a rule, is forbidden—not to mention, dangerous].

If they insist on more detail than “lots of quiet streets,” their attention will stray before I am halfway through the route: I make 27 turns on the way to work. Curiously, the most direct route to the office can be an 18.9 mile drive on the freeway, or an 18.9 mile bike ride on surface streets and a creekside trail.

How do you find a bike route that will get you to work? A reasonable start is to take advantage of the “bicycle” option on Google Maps.

How do you find the best bike route? Explore! [On your bike.] Over time, I have optimized my route along several dimensions: More direct. Less travel on busy roadways. Fewer stop signs and traffic signals. More shade.

Late on this hot afternoon, the freeway sound wall cast a cool shadow. Smell the flowers.

Bling Your Bike at Work Day

Our Bike to Work Day is a week away, and my workplace gets an early start on the festivities. Today there would be a free “Learn how to fix your own bike” clinic at work, plus a station with a colorful array of doodads and raw materials for decorating your bike.

At a previous company, an enthusiastic colleague had collected a handful of garage-sale castoffs to transport us from building to building; my sentimental favorite had a frame covered with something that resembled blue Astroturf. [But I digress.]

I thought I would take advantage of the clinic to learn how to put a new chain on my road bike. Which meant I needed to ride that bike to work. [Or load it on the shuttle. But why would I do that?] Which meant that I needed to do a little extra planning, to avoid carrying a change of clothes in a sweaty backpack.

One mile from home, I discovered that I could not shift my front dérailleur. The chain was on the big ring and it would not budge. There were hills ahead.

Should I turn back and switch bikes? I would be late for my first meeting, and I would not learn how to replace my chain.

Should I turn back and head for the shuttle stop? I would miss out on a nice morning bike ride.

Should I tough it out?

I climbed the hills. I shared a quiet residential street with a coyote. Around mile 7.8, the dérailleur spontaneously shifted down to the middle ring. Biking home entails more climbing—no bus for me today!

At the clinic, they set me up with a visiting “expert.” When he told me I didn't need a new chain because I am lightweight, I sensed this exercise would not go well. Then he mounted my bike on the stand with the drivetrain facing the support post.

Upon learning that we could not shift the front dérailleur, he proclaimed the superiority of friction shifters [pointing to his bike]. Not only did he give up on brifters, he ditched his carbon fiber frame as well. [Behold, the Retro-Grouch!]

His next observation was that my wheels need more spokes. I was ready. “I am lightweight. I don't need a lot of spokes.”

Finally, we tackled the task at hand. He looped the new chain onto the bike and prepared to connect the ends. “Shouldn't we make sure it's the right length?” I asked. [That much, I know.]

A colleague wandered over and finished my lesson in bicycle chain replacement. The Retro-Grouch made himself scarce.

At the end of the day, I made it home before the bike shop closed. My front dérailleur needed a new cable—it was bent, causing too much resistance inside the guide. They admired the yellow flower adorning my seat bag. Did you say “Bling Your Bike at Work Day?” Yes, I did.

Green Means Go

The Anything Goes Commute Challenge may be finished, but this bicycle commuter rolls on. I am determined to bike to work more regularly: once per week, at least.

I have followed a heated debate on a cycling forum recently, in which runners and cyclists square off about whether it is appropriate for runners to use a bicycle lane. I learned that the California vehicle code states:

No pedestrian shall proceed along a bicycle path or lane where there is an adjacent adequate pedestrian facility.

Pedestrians, by the way, are elsewhere defined to include people on skates, skateboards, scooters, wheelchairs ... specifically, anyone not riding a bicycle.

This morning I had ample room to swing out into the traffic lane to avoid a woman walking toward me in the bicycle lane ... right next to a perfectly good sidewalk.

A few miles down the road, as I prepared to make a right turn in a quiet residential neighborhood, I was so focused on a large construction vehicle approaching from the left that I was startled to find a guy jogging around the corner toward me, next to the curb. There was no bicycle lane, but there was a perfectly good sidewalk.

Not 10 feet later, a woman stopped her SUV in the middle of the roadway. A mountain biker on a dirt trail was waiting patiently to cross the road; the driver had the right of way and should not have yielded. This is how accidents happen.

There was something amazing about my commute this morning, and it had nothing to do with sloppy drivers or pedestrians. [Those are routine hazards.]

My entire 18.6-mile trip was interrupted by exactly one red traffic signal. [This will likely never happen again.]

By looking ahead, I can moderate my speed to roll up to an intersection just as the light turns green, or sprint to avoid losing a green. In some places, I can choose to shift my left turn strategically, turning onto a side street to avoid waiting for the upcoming light to cycle through to next green arrow. This morning, with lucky timing and these techniques, the lights were as green as the park I enjoyed on my way back home.

Anything Goes Commute Challenge: Score It

The time has come to wrap up the Anything Goes Commute Challenge, score it, and reflect on the results.

	Solo Car	Carpool	Bike + Bus	Solo Bike	Group Bike
Overall Time (minutes)	37:46	27:43	45:31	98:16	92:34
Exercise Time	0	0	8:21	90:37	87:51
Reading/ Relaxing Time	0	0	36:20	0	0
Cost	$11.37	$10.66	$0.07	$0.93	$1.00
Bliss Factor	0	-1	8	6	7
Funds for Charity	0	0	1x	2x	2x
Time Wasted	37:46	27:43	0:50	7:49	4:43
Positives	2	1	3	5	5

Not surprisingly, there is no “one best way” to get to work.

The fastest way? Carpool. The downside: this is also the most stressful (for the driver). One alternative that I did not fit into the Challenge is to be a carpool passenger: fast and low stress. Cost is a wash, because I reciprocate.

The most freedom? Solo drive. This is costly (time and money), but sometimes necessary to fit a schedule or allow extra-curricular activities.

The best for exercise? Bike it, preferably with a group that pushes the pace. The cost should be a bit higher than the Challenge suggests, I think (fuel, aka food), but it would still be insignificant.

The best overall? Bike to the shuttle, ride the bus. Low stress, low cost, least time wasted. An additional benefit is having the bike handy for quick trips at work.

There are options I did not consider, such as mass transit. When the schedules align, I can walk to catch a public bus that will drop me off near the shuttle stop—a good rainy-day option. (While it would be technically possible to rely on mass transit entirely, doing so would be slower than biking to work: 2 hours, 30 minutes plus $10.75 to ride multiple buses, light rail, and Caltrain.)

I could walk to the shuttle stop (1.5 miles), but that would be time-intensive. When the shuttle stop was closer (1 km), this was my preferred approach—rain or shine.

I can drive to the shuttle stop. (It has been known to happen.) The cost is low ($0.85), but it saves little time (competing with commute traffic, school traffic, and the vagaries of six traffic signals along the way).

Finally, I would be remiss to exclude one occasional option: the “Solo Scenic Drive.” It takes about 90 minutes, 15-20 of which are wasted in traffic. Standard mileage reimbursement rates don't apply ... but the Bliss factor is 11.

Panoche Pictorial

Our club heads for the Panoche Valley twice a year, spring and fall.
I was disappointed to miss the last outing.

After struggling last weekend, I thought I might not be ready for such a long ride. It is an out-and-back route; I could always turn around. But I knew that if I drove down there, I would want to finish.

I hatched a plan, and the plan was this: bike to (and from) work this week. Not just once, but twice. If I could pull off two 40-mile days in one week, maybe, just maybe, I could make it to the Inn and back.

The bookshelf at Starbuck's in Hollister included a volume on C programming [this is not Silicon Valley]. A local was curious about my ride plan, and yet not familiar with Panoche Road. [You need to get out more, I thought.]

The fog touched down to ground level in Hollister; droplets condensed on my car. The fog zone ended abruptly a couple of miles from our starting point in Paicines, taking with it my regrets about leaving a jacket at home. It would be a hot day, and I quickly realized I could leave my vest in the car.

What better way to spend a few hours, than this? Mostly alone on a winding, little-traveled road. I could imagine that I was seeing much of the same landscape that settlers saw when they first traversed this pass on horseback.

I paused after a challenging pitch to admire the scenery; it was so quiet that I could hear my blood pulsing with each rapid heartbeat.

The road surface is in rough condition at its easternmost end. This is a good place to work on supporting yourself with your core muscles; if you keep a tight grip on the handlebars, the bone-rattling vibrations will make your head ache.

The Inn is up for sale; the proprietors are ready for a break.

The solar farm will taint the valley with industrial blight next year. This breaks my heart.

One of our co-leaders joked that we do this ride for the headwind—in both directions. It was a relief from the heat, but ... I had to pedal downhill.

Fifty-five miles of wondrous beauty and peaceful solitude, with a mere 2700 feet of climbing.

Anything Goes Commute Challenge: Group Bike Trip

There are many avid cyclists at my workplace—many commute daily, some over long distances. It has become a tradition for me to lead a group of riders to the office on Bike To Work Day, but that rolls around once a year. What if we biked together once a week?

On most Thursdays, a plan starts to form: who's in, where and when to rendezvous. Riders meet over the first few miles: four guys and me, today. They are stronger and faster and more fit; I rode my heart out to keep up. A sampling of our morning chatter: a fierce-but-friendly competition between two colleagues to establish who can complete more commutes by bicycle this quarter; the recent Boston Marathon (one of our riders had run it, luckily finishing well ahead of the chaos); bridging and nearest neighbors; the n Queens problem. [Yes, these are engineers; this is, after all, Silicon Valley.]

The Stats:

Route: surface streets, bike/pedestrian trail
Distance: 19.9 miles
Elapsed time: 92:34
Average moving speed: 13.7 mph
Exercise time: 87:51
Reading/relaxing time: 0
Bliss factor: 7
Cost per trip: $1.00
Enables: Exercise, camaraderie, Plus3Network and company-sponsored fundraising for charity, two breakfasts.

Yogurt with granola. Shrimp with grits. Slices of melon, and roasted tomatoes. I burned more than 600 calories on the way to work; if I fail to refuel, I will fade before lunchtime.

Here is a common question from solo drivers: What happens when you have an urgent, unexpected need for a car, but you did not drive to work? Today was such a day.

In the event of an emergency, many employers (mine included) will provide a ride home. But this was not my emergency, and home is not where I needed to go.

Mid-day, a colleague reached out for help: Her husband had suddenly fallen ill, she was following the paramedics to the local hospital. She could not leave their dog in the car (for who knows how long); could I meet her and take him? Of course—I did not hesitate to say "yes."

Now what?

Three of my four nearest neighbors had not driven to work; the fourth, with a dog-friendly car, said "Let's go." Dogs are a common sight at work—they are welcome, so long as they are well-behaved. This dog knows the drill; after some reassurances, he settled right in.

Next challenge: This was an open-ended commitment. I had expected to bike home around 5 p.m.

1. I always have a bike headlight with me; it isn't powerful, but it is serviceable. If I had to finish the ride after sunset, I could.
2. The last commuter shuttle home would depart around 8 p.m. I could load the bike onto the shuttle, leaving me with a short ride home in the dark.
3. Later than that, I could bike to the light rail and get most of the way home, finishing with a few miles on the bike in the dark.

Don't worry about me or the dog, I said. We will stay at the office as long as needed. [Till 5:45 p.m., as it turned out.]

Contingency plans are highly recommended.